Fate\last call
night, dawn, and the birth of stars
The earth cast a shadow, and that shadow looked up at the heavens.
What am I, it demanded. It howled in anguish, festering with the agony of existence.
Why am I alive?
Why must I die?
Why? Why?
Bleeding with filth and pus, the vile thing curled up, weeping in preparation for itself to be extinguished.
But the end never came. Even the ashes of the land sneered in mockery as they turned to nothing in the wind.
If all things were impermanent, then how much longer until could stop crying? How long until it returned to the mire from which it had been born?
There was nothing here. Not anymore. For the blink of an eye, it had known hope, and then it had blinked.
Ruin. Hollow, meaningless ruin. And yet, it could not vanish.
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
It wept and wept, and no answer came. And so, searing its own eyes, it finally looked to the sky with the loathing to burn it down.
And in that moment, for the first time, a star responded.
You will not vanish. Because you are loved.
As it lay weeping in its ashes and its filth, the worst possible answer of all came, and it learned the name of hate.
The starlight warped to meet it, and the sky became a shadowgraph.
I despise you. So don't disappear.
Please.
Hate is all I have left.